Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Beware the FOSes...

Have you ever met someone who was full of shit? Not just a bullshit artist, but someone who appeared to be comprised mostly of rambling arguments, unoriginal regurgitated thoughts and compulsion to share that…well, shit with others.

Every now and then this bitch meets up with such a person. They are drawn to the activist and political spheres like moths to a flame. Where else can they conduct what this bitch likes to call the Crap Test? The Crap Test is when a full of shit person (FOS) enters into a complex discussion and drops…well, a load of crap containing statement like thing. This bitch holds to the theory that this is done to test the specific crap loaded statement and see if it floats.

But a bitch is also willing to entertain the theory that the FOS may just want to drop a crap bomb to stir shit up.

Either way it’s asshole behavior.

So, FOSes are drawn to the activist and political worlds…and they are dangerous, distracting and annoying.

Dangerous? Oh yes! When this bitch goes to a meeting my ass wants to discuss, decide and make some motherfucking plans to go forward.

Then we act on those plans…or a bitch will move the fuck on, because my time is precious and a bitch has no tolerance for kitchen table pontification just for the hell of it.

A bitch has neither the will nor the need to listen to someone restate the past 100 years of social and or political theory…inaccurately…all the while coming off as if no one has ever heard that shit before and Gawd put them on earth to bring the rest of us up to speed.

A strong FOS presence can result in a group or organization being branded as FOS. A bitch has seen it happen before!

"Hey, you want to check out (insert volunteer group meeting)!" well meaning person #1 says.

Person #2 looks shocked... "Oh, no. I heard they were full of shit."

WMP #1 is concerned... "Really?"

Person #2 is pleased to elaborate... "Yes! What’sHerFace went to the meeting last month and said that several members were totally full of shit and it looked like an organized festival of crap to her."

WMP #1 feels bad for ever mentioning it... "Oh! Never mind."

Mmmhmm.

Distracting? As a motherfucker, chil’ren. FOSes and the loads of crap they drop distract from the agenda of any planned gathering…and cause folks to try to correct the blatant inaccuracies in their regurgitated tired ass shit…and generally get the fuck on my nerves.

Meeting chair/leader... "Okay, so discussion on this topic is over. Are we ready to vote?"

FOS… "I don’t believe in voting and I am offended that you called for a vote!"

Chair, in disgust... "What the fuck? This is a voting rights meeting!"

FOS, with out shame... "Let me explain to you how not voting is vital to the destruction of the blah, blah, blah…"

Ugh!

Annoying? If you looked annoying up in the dictionary there’d be a picture of an FOS smiling back at you! Volunteers have shit to do…we have lives, for the love of all that is holy…and no one needs to sit through the 30 minute sidetrack trip down bullshit lane these assholes inspire with their Crap Tests!

10 comments:

Oh, my lord. Indeed. Need I also add that they are drawn to the most radical feminist and anti-racist blogs as well, where they pontificate by saying, "Now, I'm totally a feminist, which goes without saying, but maybe we need to realize that the objectification of women is not really related or important to women's rights!" Or, "Now, I'm totally against racism, which goes without saying, but let's face it; the issues of people of color are fringe issues, not related to the mainstream liberal movement!" AAAAAAAARGH! Then they waste everyone's time saying, "Oh, you're just willfully misreading me! I told you I'm a feminist and against racism!"

Maybe there should be a centralized FAQ for these Full-Of-Shits, so we could stop wasting so much of our time trying to explain why they're unwelcome hypocrites who need to do some serious homework reading and self-examination. What if we did this, ABB? Would this help?

White Bear: Well, yeah, but in a blog comment you can always skip ahead when you start to get drowsy. In person this is much harder. If people confined their long off-topic harangues to blog comments, the world would be a brighter place.

(Reluctantly acknowledging that my own brilliant insights have undoubtably on more than one occasion been someone else's FOS tangent. Oh, well.)

you can find FOSes in abundance on internet politics boards. always there to distract the conversation with absurdities that don't really warrant responses but get them anyway.

white bear, abb, if you catalogue it, i'll read it... and maybe add some characteristics that you may miss. allow me to get this started:

1) non sequitur arguers--ex: we shouldn't have universal healthcare because jesus was a jew (jaw to the floor, coherent arguments blown to shit--true, jesus was a jew, but what does that have to do with the price of tea in china???)2) ad hominem debaters--ex: gender equality? i'd argue the merits with you if you weren't so fat like michael moore. why are all communists fat? (you just called me fat, and implied that i'm a fat communist like michael moore, the fat communist, and now i want to argue that you've misrepresented who i am and you've gotten me off the subject of gender equality... shit!)3) straw men and women--ex: there are some people who say mexicans with down's syndrome should automatically take teaching positions at Harvard thanks to affirmative action. i think Harvard professors should be qualified and have advanced degrees first. (nobody says that, but the reasonable-sounding conclusion sure sounds reasonable compared to what the phantom "some people" say, doesn't it?)

Preach! Ain't it the truth? FOSs litter the hallways of academe, usually propelled by some sense of personal grievance or political cover for their own overwhelming guilt at being an intellectual. To wit, all of the "activist-scholars" I know are making a WHOLE lot more money than I am, teaching less, and posing more. The process queens aren't interested in action, only positions. something I've always chalked up to our inheritance from classic Left thinking (the true origin of "politically correct") with its doctrinaire one-upsmanship that combines with the strange American sociopathology of refusnikism (Left, Right, up or down, most Americans will say "no" to anything that's not about them, 9 times out of 10). After a life time (seemingly) of these meetings, I've earned my place out of the sun (wink).

The times when I have had the time and inclination to be active in an organization I wound up getting frustrated and dropping out because the FOS types sucked up all meeting time and did their best to block anyone from every actually DOING anything.

This is a funny post, I can't believe It took me so long to get to it.

So, I think a lot of people despise bullshit. I know I do...I feel like I don't have the time to deal with it.

However, being the humanist I am, I think the FOSers are really looking for answers. I mean, you've been in situations with ME, where I've tried to put a current Hammer/Che-ism to the test. I think that's how some people learn, grow and work towards some little bit of perfection. You know what I mean?

Now, do I think these discussions go over well in the 'real world' where decision need to be made? Hell no! I've been on formative committees that have fallen to shit because few people wanted to commit to action...they'd rather 'kitchen table' it...that's fucking full of shit behavior that I can't tolerate...

Since we are social individuals, we have to allow others to test their theories/ideas (in the proper arena). Otherwise, we'd never change and never understand others. . . TRAGEDY!